Tom Bower

‘Deranged conspiracy’. That’s the Sussexes’ verdict of Betrayal, my second blast at Harry and Meghan, after the serialisation was in the papers at the weekend. Naturally, I’m grateful. The book now ranks No. 1 on Amazon. My biography of Robert Maxwell also benefited from his endless writs. Similarly, Richard Branson sued twice to prevent publication. He lost and was denied the licence to run the National Lottery. The tycoon Tiny Rowland was more subtle and effective. ‘Bower’s book,’ he announced, ‘is boring. He’s missed all the good bits.’ That hurt. My new book exposes the vainglorious Duke and Duchess’s downwards spiral over the past five years towards an inglorious endgame. Dwindling fame and fortune is forcing them to revalidate their royal status.

As a teenager back in the early 1960s, on Friday afternoon I would head down to Soho after school with friends. Our sanctuary was Les Enfants Terrible in Dean Street, a heaving bar and dark basement dance floor. With luck, we found girls who came along later that evening to any of the dozen other Soho music clubs, not least Le Kilt or the 100 Club in Wardour Street. That was the beginning of the unforgettable Swinging Sixties. Fifty years later, Soho’s wonderful nightlife has been destroyed by Westminster Council, the Mayor of London and the Labour government. Welcome to the Twilight Twenties. Proof of Labour’s deliberate destruction of London’s music scene was the recent publication of Westminster Council’s ‘Draft Westminster After Dark Strategy Summary’.

Even from the grave, Mohamed Al-Fayed dictated his obituary. When news of his death emerged in September 2023, Al-Fayed’s loyal spokesman Michael Cole pronounced that the former owner of Harrods had been ‘full of great humanity’. ‘Many people', Cole said, 'were beneficiaries of his kindness and generosity'. When I was approached by the BBC to give my verdict on Fayed, my contribution that he had been a ‘pimp, rapist, fraudster and a habitual liar' didn't make the cut. Even his name 'Al' Fayed was phoney, a concoction he dreamt up with his partner in crime, the Dubai ambassador Mahdi al Tajir in 1970.

All those esteemed generals of hindsight screeching ‘more governance’ as the cure to BBC’s cover-up of the Martin Bashir’s dishonesty 25 years ago share with Lord Dyson a misunderstanding about the essential cause of the Panorama catastrophe and all the ensuing BBC scandals including those involving Jimmy Savile, Cliff Richard and Alistair McAlpine. Namely, ‘Birtism’. Under John Birt, the BBC’s director general from 1992 to 1999, an ever-increasing number of new structures, controls and governance were imposed upon the BBC’s creative talents to suppress and remove risk.

This week marks another milestone in my 15-year battle with Richard Branson. Ever since he unsuccessfully sued me in 1999 to prevent the publication of my first damning biography, we have exchanged shots. His anointment on Sunday as Britain’s most admired businessman coincides with my appearances to promote Branson: Behind the Mask, my second book. Inevitably, the book sparked his fury, summarised in a 29-page letter of complaint. Our war is now focused on whether Virgin Galactic, his Heath Robinson rocket, will ever carry him 62 miles into the border of space. For ten years his regular predictions of imminent take-off have proven wrong. Last Christmas he announced he would fly this month with his son and daughter. I derided his forecast. Now he says take-off will be next March.

At Tony Hayward’s inquisition in Washington last week, the hapless BP chief executive resisted the temptation to condemn his predecessor, Lord Browne of Madingley, by name. Instead, pressed repeatedly to explain why BP had breached safety regulations on over 700 occasions, Hayward described 2006 as the corporation’s worst year. That was John Browne’s last full year as chief executive. He left the job humiliated, having been exposed for signing an untruthful court statement. Ever since, Browne has defended that dishonesty as a unique aberration. But as the American investigation of the Gulf catastrophe develops, the blame for the poisonous legacy inherited by Hayward will increasingly be heaped on Browne.